Skunk Hunt

by J. Clayton Rogers

  She flipped through the book, causing a rather specific ache in my head as she lost my page. "How can you remember all these foreign names?"

  "I can't," I said truthfully. "Especially all the Charleses."

  "Who was Francis I?" she asked, testing me.

  "Catherine's father-in-law, father of Henry II, king of France, big spender, big loser as a military leader, big winner with the women," I said, recalling the salient points.

  "Good enough," said Kendle, nodding and shaking her head in appreciative amazement. "You may not have a good head on your shoulders, but at least it's not empty. "You know," she added, "I've always wanted to go to Paris."

  What was it with women and Paris? They made it sound like a couture machine. They'd walk in frumy and walk out Yves St. Laurent.

  "So I guess you can go, now that we know no one's waiting to ambush me," I said, perhaps with a trace of hope.

  "Not while there's a gun in the house." Kendle sidled up to me.

  "You mean yours?" I asked nervously.

  "No, I mean this."

  She reached out and touched my erect pistol. I jumped back. Police brutality!

  "That thing's been cocked ever since we came in here," she observed with sherlockian acumen. "It's obvious you need a mommy."

  This was a seriously demented conflation: cocks and Mom. I turned to flee, but she was really spry for a Plus Size and she was on me before I could take another step. She reached around and snagged me good, all the while gobbling into my ear, "Mommy...mommy...mommy."

  The most fearsome instincts are the ones that come unbidden. You run when you want to stand, your macho chips going syrupy and drooling out your butt. You go in demanding a raise and come out wearing pink. Want to sleep, can't sleep, want to stay awake, and nod off. The heart ramps up, the brain damps down. You want privacy and land in a crowd. You want a crowd and can't even find a friendly dog. You want to get laid and come face to face with a Viking.

  Yeah, my heart wanted mommy in the worst way, even if my mind lusted after Kant. You don't often hear about men being ravished. By women, I mean. You can't blame the target if that's where the bullet wants to go. I was a participant, let's say, in an uneven negotiation with an arms dealer. She had all the weapons, but I had the ammunition. She would do anything to get loaded, just to stay in business.

  Awkward analogies aside, I was having a hard time holding my own as Kendle twisted me around like a soggy pretzel and goose-stepped me towards the bed. I understood now why all those Victorian heroines fainted when a seducer had them in their clutches. It wasn't a sudden lack of oxygen to the brain, but passive resistance. A dead weight is a lot harder to tote around than a thrashing body. Fainting was out, since I didn't want to look like a wuss, but my alternative, thrashing, wouldn't have won me a spot in the WWF kindergarten.

  Falling on the bed, I felt Catherine de Medici goosing me from behind. I wanted to warn Kendle against damaging city property, but something erupted overhead and a pair of mammary stormclouds smothered my protests. My spine pinched into the mattress and I wheezed like the last living Confederate. When being crushed, it's hard to focus on details, but I couldn't ignore the red-hot marble that rolled into my mouth. I was commanded to suck, and then to suck harder. I was sucking wind, but I'm not used to multi-tasking—I don't like tasking at all—and I murmured a demand for breathing space.

  "Little boy wants air?" she half-spoke and half-tongued in my ear.

  "Little boy wants oxygen tank."

  Throughout all of this, and in spite of being crushed and occasionally kneed, the center of attention remained preternaturally stiff—which made the weight all the more painful. Kendle came to the conclusion that I would not be much of a lover if she killed me and eased off enough to give me a sliver of daylight. My relief was cut short when she slid her hand under my waistband and grabbed my mister so hard that I threatened to become a miss.

  "Let's go to Paris," she gasped.

  I guessed she was referring to the book digging painfully into my coccyx. I wanted to tell her that Catherine de Medici was actually from Florence, then decided circumstances were such that facts wouldn't register. This was all fantasy born of desperation. We all like to think we're beautiful when we're duking it out with the opposite sex. That, or we're too horny to care. She thought she was Marilyn Monroe. Being a realist, I was comparing myself to Woody Allen.

  I heard a loud thud and was alarmed at the thought of her gun hitting the floor and going off accidentally, especially with my bare ass in range. But the only explosion was the loud snap of her jogging pants as she stretched the waistband over her hips.

  They say that all women are the same in the dark, which is no more than the puny alibi of drunks who go to bed with a hot babe and wake up with Eleanor Roosevelt. But I was stone sober, the evening sun was sending X-rays through my window, and even when I closed my eyes I couldn't deny I was dealing with something a lot more substantial than the scarecrows of past experience. Still, my situation wasn't entirely negative. Her broad nipples had an undeniable chocolaty appeal, her skin carried a faint hint of pecan roll and her carving tongue carried traces of nougat. I was a kid in a candy shop. The temptation was enormous. I began to consider the benefits of overindulgence.

  One thing about big women: they flow. And I went with the flow, her hot skin soaking me as she somehow bared more and more of it, and even more mysteriously bared more of mine. It was sort of like being assaulted by a polar bear, but one of those nice Christmas-ad polar bears, and even if she had been more of the Wild Kingdom variety I really didn't have much choice in the matter.

  I wondered if I would be able to rotate myself on top and, if I managed it, if I should take the opportunity to sprint for the door. But this kind of speculation went by the wayside when I felt a tight venereal vise close on my manhood and, between gasps for air, I began to enjoy myself.

  "Oh..." she said, easing down slowly. "Paris..."

  Oregon Hill. Oh well, six of one, half a dozen of the...oh...

  Catherine de Medici was all hot and rumpled beneath me. The next reader who checked out this book would puzzle over the stains.

  Kendle's tits really did taste of cocoa blend. Maybe it was her soap. Or maybe she was the Easter bunny.

  "We're going to Paris..." she moaned, as though gloating over a boarding pass.

  I wanted to tell her I didn't have a passport. Was she planning to smuggle me to Europe in her carry-on?

  Granted, cops are allowed to have a sex life, or else the breed would die out. The fates had decreed that on this day I should be humping one of them in my bed. But I could not suppress a sense of guilt at playing bounce the balls with the very enemy who had dogged my father most of his life. The good guys were the bad guys, in my world scheme. In this town, where the spelling is atrocious and 'old' is spelled 'olde', 'fun' is a four-letter word. It didn't seem right (or proper) that one of those assigned to stop people from having fun should be having so much of it at my expense. On the other hand, I had more than once heard Skunk say "Screw the cops", so in some sense I was getting vengeance and rescuing the family honor.

  "We're going to Paris, Paris, Paris," the woman in the upper bunk intoned breathlessly, taking flight. A lot of things can go through your head during intercourse, but the idea of hurtling through space in a tuna can would have deflated me in an instant. I focused on the strictly practical, like how to enjoy this moment while avoiding a crippling injury.

  Things appeared to be progressing to the standard coital release when the closet door was flung open and there stood Dog.

  Preoccupied with landing her plane at Charles de Gaulle Airport , Kendle did not notice the newcomer.

  "Paris!" she cried out. "Paris!"

  I was sort of stuck in that magical moment when a man is almost as helpless as when he's passed out drunk. If I tried to push her off, she would interpret the movement as my contribution to the orgy.

  Dog didn't spend much time gawping. He raised his ha
nds to either side of his head and pulled at the hair jutting down from under his straw hat.

  "I can't stand it!" he announced in a kind of barking hiccup and ran for the door.

  Kendle opened her eyes and began to decouple.

  "He's gone," I gasped. Taking hold of her thighs, I pulled her back down. We spent the next five minutes re-arousing and achieving a rousing I-can't-stand-it.

  CHAPTER 16

  That Dog had been gawping at our antics through the closet door was easier to swallow than the thought of him playing snippets of Skunk over the phone. From what I had seen of Carl Ksnip's pet bone muncher, the technological challenge of operating a tape recorder would have been, for Dog, comparable to me launching a moon rocket. Still, when I thought back on the call to the Science Museum and the apparent fumbling at the other end of the line, it seemed possible that Dog had been taught the rudiments of playback.

  Kendle was put out by the intrusion, once she had recovered from our sordid tryst. She slopped a washrag over her vital areas, dressed, and departed with a meager, "See you in the funny papers."

  Actually, it was a fitting epitaph to the day. I was happy to have gotten laid, but perfectly miserable over the means. It's not that I'm adverse to plump women, or tacit rape, or inappropriate behavior by vested authority. They, and the detective's overweening assumption that I was gung-ho on the idea of being smothered by a menacing white cloud, could be brushed aside once I had punched the big ticket. Yet I had in some sense become a police lackey. If my brother and sister found out about this they might stop laughing long enough to realize I was now a threat. It's a well-known fact that people talk too much in bed. One of the great benefits of onanism is its inherent secrecy. There's no one to talk to when you're jerking off, which Jeremy and Barbara probably thought was how I spent my entire adult life. 'Ol' Mute won't be spilling any secrets while he's whacking the mattress.' Ugh.

  I found myself dismissing the evidence before my eyes and admitting other possibilities. And there was only one other: Carl Ksnip. Dog must have accompanied him to my house, in his usual role as rabid leash-buddy, and was somehow left behind when Carl made a quick exit. Maybe Dog had sniffed out my copies of Stuffed Muff and was searching for pictures of Monique cheating on him with some photogenic stud. The girl who had accompanied Carl and traded snubs with Barbara had looked familiar, but that was probably the result of my limited peephole mentality.

  All of which begged the question of how Carl had come across the old photo of Skunk and Flint Dementis mugging in front of the Virginia Electric Power Company hydroelectric plant on Belle Isle.

  I had seen the clue when I followed Kendle through the door. After lying in bed for an hour, playing biofeedback with my blood pressure and making sure the detective had broken none of my bones, I drew on my pants and went downstairs. The scarred coffee table next to the couch had been cleared off to make way for the framed picture, in which Flint looked more demented than ever, and Skunk every bit as wicked as he had been. My imagination filled in blanks that may or may not have existed, but it certainly appeared as though they were noting a secret for the unseen cameraman.

  The power plant had been shut down in 1964, and from the decrepit state of the building behind the two men it was obvious they weren't waiting for a tour guide to show them the latest techniques in aquatic electricity. In fact, neither of them looked all that young, although Skunk had always had an air of risible age about him, while Flint always seemed to be celebrating his thousandth birthday. I guessed Skunk, at least, was ten years younger than when I had last seen him, if you discount the fact that someone lying on a morgue slab has become pretty much ageless, with no reference point to count back from.

  I was suffering from post-coital trauma with traces of hysteria. Thinking straight was the furthest thing from my mind. Belle Isle was just down the hill and across the pedestrian bridge. On foot, I could be at the power plant in fifteen minutes. But the falling darkness put a crimp in any impulse I might have to dash to the river and retrieve my prize. Twisting my way around the fences and water courses would be treacherous enough in daylight. At night I would be courting a broken neck.

  I decided to wait until morning. Unfortunately, this left me with time to ponder unwanted options: like calling Barbara and Jeremy to invite them along. That would mean splitting whatever I found into three portions, and with Jeremy around those portions were bound to be uneven--well, thirds usually are. But mine were not the only eyes on the prize, and there was a good chance I was being watched. In the right mood, Jeremy could provide muscle against any adversary we might encounter on the heavily-wooded island. Dog had flatfooted him once. I doubted it would happen again.

  Hovering over my head like a pesky yellow jacket was the thought that Jeremy might not come. We had found money in the old house, sure enough, but not in the amount promised. Not even close. And he didn't know yet that it was the wrong money, from some Pacific no-place where they probably still wore thongs, and I'm not talking lingerie. But judging from his expression when I last saw him, Jeremy's attitude had slumped into irate and lazy skepticism. He seemed to accept that any money we found would end up in someone else's hands. Events at the old house had proved the rule.

  And Barbara? She could probably lay Dog flat with a flash of breast and thigh, but you couldn't count on her keeping a secret. Hell, maybe she was in cahoots with Carl. Maybe he had promised her a partnership in the PFZ, in return for a modest contribution of say half a million. She could be a star and manager, every woman's dream.

  It had to be Jeremy or no one. At least I could say I had come up in the world. At least now I had a choice. My sexual triumph, if such it was, had given birth to dotty optimism. If I wanted, I could have a partner. Two partners, if I included Kendle, who I was sure would be only too happy to join me in the woods. She obviously was not 100% dedicated to the straight and narrow or else she would have had qualms about compressing me on my very own mattress. She might be open to other forms of temptation.

  I dwelled on all this as the evening sitcoms scrolled past my blind side, a six-pack of Buds disappeared one by one from my coffee table, and incinerated cigarettes piled up at my elbow. It was an evening of sumptuous contemplation, when my mind alternately raced and strolled along paths to the future. I'd never really planned my future. Actually, the future was just something that flicked out of sight the instant it was spotted. I was permanently huddled between if-or-when and if-and-when. Money is the great focuser. You plan how to get it, then how to use it—but only after you decide if you want it in the first place. I came to the startling conclusion that I was pretty satisfied with the way things were. It wasn't very exciting, but that was fine. I don't like space/time convulsions, although I had to admit that my convulsions with Kendle had proved relaxing in the long run—and a single afternoon is a long run, so far as I was concerned. The prospect of illicitly inheriting a grand sum posed a problem I was not all that comfortable with. I wasn't as greedy as the next guy, which some people would say proved my lack of ambition, but I didn't see it as a disease. As I sat there, with the television flashing for attention and growing slightly more inebriated (both me and the TV, it seemed) by the minute, I began to see a way out. I would do what I had always done: absolutely nothing.

  Anyone with sense can tell you inertia is the great enemy of the let's-get-it-done crowd, without whom we'd still be whatever it was we were before, and apparently no one wants that. The engine of history was rumbling, the Check Engine Light could not be ignored. I would not be allowed to sit complacently on my ass, or my laurels, or even on my ratty couch. I was suddenly blinded by the light, not of enlightenment, as the preachers say, but by a real light shining through my front window. I spent a few moments being deer-struck, my logical corollaries running from lynch mobs to mobsters, before a loud knocking on the pane told me I had been spotted and reamed. Imagine me running out the back door. Imagine me ducking under the blanket I kept by the couch for those nights I was too
lazy to make my way to one or another bedroom. Imagine me dismissing the stranger with a shrug and blithely turning my back on him. Imagine anything but me going to the door and opening it. I could be greeted by a hail of bullets, or a chorus line of cops or—

  "Mute, you idiot! I can't find my key! Let me in!"

  Or Barbara.

  "What are you doing here?" I asked.

  "What?" she shouted through the glass.

  Resigned and relieved, I stood and went to the door.

  "What's wrong with you? Are you drunk?" Barbara flustered into the house, flapping loose purple sleeves on a flimsy jacket about as practical as Kleenex against the night chill. She looked gift-wrapped. Her heels chipped slivers out of the wooden floor. She belonged on a leash. Like any brat born in the Audio/Visual Era, she drifted towards the sound of the television. We're like goldfish, feeding ourselves to death on Hartz Artificial Images.

  "What are you watching?" she asked.

  "I don't know," I said, looking at the screen. "Don't you?"

  "I don't have much free time for late night."

  "I'll bet," I said. I was only making conversation, but she shot me a dark look. "What are you doing here?" Now that the kit-kat was out of the bag, I continued, "Shouldn't you be at work?"

  "I told Carl I twisted my ankle," she said. "It's one of the occupational hazards of a chanteuse."

  The word she wanted was 'danseuse', but I let it slide. "Those poles are dangerous," I observed. "Do they grease them?"

  Barbara wielded her yellow, oversized flashlight like a club. Thinking it was a mock attack, I ducked halfheartedly, then discovered it was the real thing and just missed getting clobbered by a scarce inch.